The beauty of Barcelona

When the referee blew the final whistle, the victors dropped to their knees.

The standing ovation from a hundred thousand Catalans was greeted by the players with raised hands and million-dollar smiles.

It was not the land where the Beatles were born, but nobody could have captured the immortal band’s spirit the way Barcelona did on an unforgettable Sunday night. Their celebration was a beautiful reminder to their greatest rivals in Madrid — that there is something that money can’t buy.

While Real, inarguably the greatest club in the history of football, spent millions on a galaxy of stars, Barca simply put faith in players who came through their famous youth academy. The likes of Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Carlos Puyol have already embraced greatness, and others like Victor Valdes and Gerard Pique have now become reliable warriors who provide steel to a team that turns football fields into beauty parlours.

And the player who has been threatening to join the game’s immortals too is a product of their youth academy. We all know how Lionel Messi makes defenders tackle his shadow, but what we didn’t know was that the 22-year-old showed the same ability to lose his markers when he played his first ever match for the Barcelona youth team nine years ago.

“Well, when he first arrived all those years ago, we were told that this kid was exceptional,” Pau Marti, Technical Director of Barcelona Soccer School who recently attended a football clinic in Dubai, told this correspondent.

“And in the first match that he played, he scored five goals. He was very small, the smallest, in fact. He was much shorter than the others. But he had unbelievable skills. Later in training, everybody was looking in awe at him. So everybody knew about his talent from the first day…..”

The world and European player of the year probably would have never played football at the highest level if Barca had not come to help. Messi was suffering from a growth hormone deficiency. His parents in Argentina were unable to find a club who could help their gifted son. Even Buenos Aires giants River Plate refused Messi, saying the treatment was too expensive. So his parents finally decided to bring him to Barcelona.

It was their only hope.

Their little son needed to convince the Barca youth coaches that he indeed had magical feet. The boy didn’t just impress them, he left them speechless. Barca realised that this was a gem they couldn’t afford to lose. They immediately agreed to take care of the kid’s medical expenses.

Thus the most emotional football journey began at the Barca youth academy. Messi, at the tender age of 13, was given injections each day on his legs for three years. It was painful, but it eventually triumphed against a conspiring destiny. From a boy with a growth hormone deficiency, Messi turned into an unstoppable giant. His mesmerising skills brought 38 goals and gave the team a historic treble last year, and his 47 this summer, have given Barca their 20^th La Liga and their first Club World Cup titles.

Rising stars

Though Messi was their biggest star, it was the emergence of other young players that caught the eye. Pedro Rodriguez, Bojan Krkic and Sergio Busquets were immense during a season in which Barca had to fight an epic battle for the title with the Ronaldo-inspired Real.

Not only did they show their talent on the big stage, these youngsters also proved that the Barca youth academy could produce players that can outshine the stars Real spend millions on. Remarkably, these players seem to be at ease with Barca’s style, which is so easy to admire, but so difficult for other teams to match.

Pau Marti explains why these youngsters actually find it easy to play for the first team. “All the youth teams of Barcelona are working in the same way for the last 20-25 years,” he says with an infectious smile (which probably remains loyal to his face since he has the pleasure of working with the wonder kids).

“They are following the same system, same style. Every season when the juniors reach the next stage, they keep the same mentality, which is to play beautiful and attractive football.

“So when the graduates of the academy arrive in the first team of Barcelona, they know how to play. They know because they have been playing the same way since the beginning. So it becomes easy for them to play for the Barcelona first team…”

Now it’s easy to see why Pep Guardiola has so much faith in the youngsters.

“For the coaches (of the first team), it becomes easy to take players from the youth team. Because all the youngsters know how to play the kind of football Barcelona plays. So Pep doesn’t have to spend time in telling the youngsters what to do. The youngsters already know their job…”

Florentino Perez, after the trophy-less season, may already have started thinking about spending millions again, but Pau Marti believes Real’s financial power cannot match Barca’s wealth.

“We have very good players in the 15, 16 and 17 age groups. Some of them are ready to play for the first team. There are some amazing players. Few of them might get into the first team in the new season.”

Now we know why the Camp Nou sings that FC Barcelona is ‘more than a club’. It brings an old world charm to the beautiful game at a time when the glamorous world of modern football is busy chasing the prima donnas.

rituraj@khaleejtimes.com